BILLIE MARTEN - EDINBURGH - 4TH DECEMBER 2023
Billie Marten opened with a fan favourite and a smile at Summerhall in Edinburgh this Monday. The crowd settled to make way for Billie’s signature soft vocals and also because this is the meditative effect they seem to have on any listener. ’Garden of Eden’ set the tone of the evening, as it did for the Yorkshire singer-songwriter’s 2021 record ‘Flora Fauna’- there would be lightheartedness, quiet, and blaring depth. Received as being a more experimental addition to her existing repertoire, we are seeing with every output and performance just how deep and wide Marten’s talent runs.
Billie moved her audience, quite literally, with ‘Mice’ a track from her second studio album, encouraging everyone to engage in a rhythmic sway for its duration. “Four minutes of this” she joked, “I’ll be able to tell if you’ve stopped”. And we found we couldn’t have if we tried. Becoming a one organism, the room swayed from side to side, the melody and the movement trancelike. The singer joined in, of course and modestly, as much of a listener as the rest of us.
The rest of the band exited the stage for a haunting solo prelude, featuring some older tracks from ‘Writing of Blues and Yellows’ and some newer ones from ‘Drop Cherries’, Marten’s 2023 album. Despite the considerable gap between their releases, all songs were met with equal enthusiasm and participation among Edinburgh fans, captivated- as it were- for eight years and more to come. Then the treat of an unreleased song, ‘Crown’. Although nobody could sing along to this one yet, there sure was humming, there sure was enormous applause by its end.
Billie invited her brilliant band and support act Clara Mann back to the stage for an intimate harmonic huddle, performing several recent songs and another to-be-released track ‘Swing’. As if a stack of driftwood lay at their feet, this campfire ensemble silenced the room.
It was by the last song of the encore, the closing note of ‘I Can’t Get My Head Around You’ that I noticed it, the entire audience keeping time with a gentle sway. In fact, they hadn’t given up after those four minutes at the beginning of the night. They had barely given up by the time Billie left the stage.
